Super-empowered Nigerians, higher oil

ARTICLE: Nigerian Rebels Drive Up Oil Prices, By Steven Mufson, Washington Post, June 30, 2009

A point to Robb's global guerrillas thesis WRT weak states: nonstate actors driving up global oil prices.

Comments

[D McGuire]

The non-state actors driving responsible for driving up the price of oil are Goldman Sachs. From Matt Taibbi's article in current Rolling stone:"So what caused the huge spike in oil prices? Take a wild guess. Obviously Goldman had help - there were other players in the physical-commodities market - but the root cause had almost everything to do with the behavior of a few powerful actors determined to turn the once-solid market into a speculative casino. Goldman did it by persuading pension funds and other large institutional investors to invest in oil futures - agreeing to buy oil at a certain price on a fixed date. The push transformed oil from a physical commodity, rigidly subject to supply and demand, into something to bet on, like a stock. Between 2003 and 2008, the amount of speculative money in commodities grew from $13 billion to $317 billion, an increase of 2,300 percent. By 2008, a barrel of oil was traded 27 times, on average, before it was actually delivered and consumed."